Is California's billion-dollar homelessness strategy working?

[Burnt Offerings]

Is California's billion-dollar homelessness strategy working?

California has spent billions on homelessness, taking on a role usually left to local and federal government.

www.grid.news

Pretty good article about the nature of the homelessness problem in California.

Basically the main point the article makes is that the rate of people being pushed into homelessness by California's absurd cost of living/housing exceeds the number of people being elevated out of homelessness by the state's programs, thus rendering them ineffective at addressing the problem

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

Real estate crises almost everywhere it seems.

Here in Belgium, I'd need to like put aside like 1/3 or more of my wage for a decent apartment or small house depending on location. Co-housing or saving quite a bit to then buy a house whose price is massively inflated is like the only real option.
Imo something is inherently very wrong when people need to put aside that much money just for a roof. From what I gather the main problem here is that 1. the majority (new) houses are geared towards the upper middle class (most money in it I guess) and 2. not enough social housing is being built.

I do wonder, when it comes to California, is it hard to just get out & leave and move to a cheaper state/city? I think you'd feel the increasing strain on your income coming. It's probably a dumb question, and most people losing a home were probably living from paycheck to paycheck anyway.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

No.

In SF and L.A., as well as SD the homeless are treated terribly. Both by the public, business owners, politicians, etc.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

I do wonder, when it comes to California, is it hard to just get out & leave and move to a cheaper state/city? I think you'd feel the increasing strain on your income coming. It's probably a dumb question, and most people losing a home were probably living from paycheck to paycheck anyway.

A lot of people have been leaving the state of California in recent years. Sometimes it gets portrayed as some kind of political thing, but really it mostly has to do with the fact that it's simply too expensive to live there for many people

 

[Jabberwocky]

Part of the problem is many homeless from across the country actually migrate to California, for several reasons. Weather is a big factor, because it's never too cold or too hot, it's easy to survive with no shelter. California has more a lot more homeless programs and aid than a lot of other states, too.

A lot of people have been leaving the state of California in recent years. Sometimes it gets portrayed as some kind of political thing, but really it mostly has to do with the fact that it's simply too expensive to live there for many people

Yeah, that's a big reason why I left. Unless you make 100k+, or have family that already own property you can inherit, it's next to impossible to ever buy a house. Otherwise I loved living there.

I just did not see an easy future for myself there when looking ahead 20 years.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

Yeah I remember reading about the rents in the Bay Area a while back, I was blown away by the rents for just a crappy one-bedroom apartment, like you'd have to make at least 36K a year just to cover your rent

 

[xtcgrrrl]

A Brief History of the Cohousing Movement — Altair Eco Village

For 99 percent of our species history, the majority of humans lived in locally-based, humanly-scaled bands, tribes, or villages. Community is our natural social habitat! But with modern “progress,” it has been withering.

www.altairecovillage.org

The cohousing movement is a good answer to this problem, in California and elsewhere. This is the cohousing community that my dad is involved with and is instrumental in starting up. Our close family friend just moved to a very successful, long-established cohousing community in Ithaca:

Ecovillage at Ithaca – Website for Ecovillage at Ithaca

This is just one answer among many, of course. Any good solution will have to be multi-pronged. But I think it is a viable - and growing - social movement.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

The homeless crises in California is being used by corrupt government contractors to bleed the taxypayers and not fix shit.

A bunch of Buerrocrats in office making 200k and tiny homes being built at 800 K per piece in LA all as a scam to bleed tax payers and not fix shit

 

[Burnt Offerings]

Interesting housing-policy related article that I didn't want to create a separate thread for

In 2019, Cleveland legislated a Right to Counsel for families with low incomes facing eviction. With a lawyer to represent them, these families can exercise their rights as tenants to protect their home. United Way and Legal Aid partnered to bring this right to reality in 2020, with funding support from the city of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, and a long list of philanthropic community leaders. Cleveland was only the fourth city in the United States to create such a right, and we continue to be a national leader in the movement to make housing a human right.

Families require housing stability to succeed and to have a shot at building generational wealth. When eviction looms, that stress has downstream effects on the family and community. For instance, a study by Boston Medical Center demonstrated that caregivers for young children in unstable low-income housing are two times more likely than those in stable housing to be in fair or poor health, and almost three times more likely to report symptoms of depression.

When Right to Counsel in Cleveland began, we knew our public-private partnership would help many people overcome barriers to employment and economic opportunity. As COVID-19 hit, that work became even more urgent. The significance of representation in eviction cases cannot be overstated: Tenants who receive legal help in eviction cases are more likely to stay in their homes.

Building on success of ‘Right to Counsel’ in evictions: Sharon Sobol Jordan and Colleen Cotter

The "Right to Counsel" effort began with a strategic, focused, and robust public-private partnership. Together we have built a solution that works, write guest columnists Sharon Sobol Jordan, president and CEO of United Way of Greater Cleveland, and Colleen Cotter, executive director of The...

www.cleveland.com

 

[cosmic charlie]

Here in the North East being homeless is pretty rough, ive been on the streets a couple times in NYC for awhile and down at the shore in NJ. In the city they really help you out with easily accessible food stamps, clothing vouchers and health insurance. Got it literally the same day i was released from Prison, cash assistance a couple weeks later. Even with all my felonies. There is lots of soup kitchens and food pantries all over the place, shelters that are pretty rugged but they are there.

Some dude literally got damn near decapitated in one of them by this nut, like he cut his throat to the spinal cord. This happened during that four month period i was on the streets and after that i just slept on the sidewalk or subway most of the time. But id stay there once a week so i can shower, id bird bath during the week.

I was able to run stories on people on the streets and get them to give me money out of pity, it sucked. But id make like 40 bucks a day sometimes more, id spend it all on drugs. Id just walk into stores and fill up my backpack with alcohol, food and stuff to trade for money to. Just walk right out of the store, disappear down the sidewalk head down into the subway.

In NJ they dont wanna give you shit if your a criminal, only food stamps once your a convict and they make you wait and reapply constantly and stop them its bad. There is not that many shelters and they are very dangerous like in NYC. So i would just sleep on the beach and shower on the boardwalk during the summer early fall.

Id ask random people for money get food and drugs, wait at the train station in Asbury for people to pull up that wanted to cop Dope/Crack and id go meet my dude and get some bags for the favor. Wasnt a glamorous life, thankfully only a couple years of my life were this dire. Im able to keep my shit together most of the time and hold down a job and have a place to live.

Do i think they do enough for the homeless in the US, probably not. Mean if they would have put me up in a hotel for awhile or something i could have found a job and a place to live easier. Its hard to work a job when your living outdoors...

 

[qwertygina]

Real estate crises almost everywhere it seems.

Here in Belgium, I'd need to like put aside like 1/3 or more of my wage for a decent apartment or small house depending on location. Co-housing or saving quite a bit to then buy a house whose price is massively inflated is like the only real option.
Imo something is inherently very wrong when people need to put aside that much money just for a roof. From what I gather the main problem here is that 1. the majority (new) houses are geared towards the upper middle class (most money in it I guess) and 2. not enough social housing is being built.

I do wonder, when it comes to California, is it hard to just get out & leave and move to a cheaper state/city? I think you'd feel the increasing strain on your income coming. It's probably a dumb question, and most people losing a home were probably living from paycheck to paycheck anyway.

Yup.
And not really anywhere to move too. All the decent places have almost as much of a housing problem as California.
There is literally no real help .

 

[qwertygina]

No.

In SF and L.A., as well as SD the homeless are treated terribly. Both by the public, business owners, politicians, etc.

They are treated like that in most of California cities.